The efficacy of imaging and display devices to detect, reproduce, or depict colors accurately for human viewers is dependent on the spectral content of the lighting conditions. A spectral content curve that represents the wavelength content of light can be obtained by making measurements of the intensity or power of the light as a function of wavelength. The absolute power information of the spectral content curve can be converted to photometric information by applying a photometric function that models human visual responses to various wavelengths. The radiometric or photometric information can be used to inform the operation of the imaging devices to capture or the display devices to display images with accurate color representations or brightness for specific lighting conditions.